Inspiration

“We moved from thinking of ourselves as designers to thinking of ourselves as design thinkers. We have a methodology that enables us to come up with a solution that nobody has before.” — David Kelley, Founder of Ideo

Read the full article at FastCompany

Microsoft Office Labs has posted a future vision montage of human-computer interfaces of tomorrow. I’m a complete sucker for this kind of stuff.

IDEO has posted the Human Centered Design Toolkit, available for download as two PDF files. Though positioned as a guide for NGOs and Social Enterprises, the methods described would work along many other design-related avenues.

Filmmaker Doug Pray has a new documentary Art & Copy showing in select cities. I’ll keep an eye out a Miracle 5, but more likely I’ll have to wait for it on Netflix.

The September edition of Wired includes some makeover designs for the craigslist site.

This post contains a brief video covering the myriad of iterations for the “Convert” iPhone app. It’s definitely worth a gander. Thanks for Mark Marsiglio for the tip.

Netflix has published a slideshow about their company culture. Good stuff.

This brief post by Jon Hicks about icon design contains a link to an incredibly useful and instructive PDF file of his presentation. Though there’s no audio, all 89 pages (18MB) are worth a peek.

Sitepoint has an interview with web avatar Cameron Adams, who’s working with Google on Google Wave. It’s interesting to see his comments on testing at Google:

“For testing stuff hot off the presses, we basically walk around the office with a few prototypes, tackle people to the ground, and force them to use the application. This could either be in the form of static mockups or sketches, coupled with questions like: What do you think will happen if you click this? Or, the process that I find most valuable for an application like this is to create a simplified prototype of the behavior that we’re thinking of and let people have a go on at it.

It’s quite different to have an image that requires people to use their imagination than it is to present them with what the engineers will build after two months. So, I have a bunch of different interactive prototypes that focus on one area each — scrolling, typing, inserting, dragging, and so on. And we’ll tune these until we like what we have and users get the optimal experience. Then we hand it off to the engineers to build it properly.”

Bad news from the Florida CIO Council Pandemic Preparedness Committee today. According to the Florida DOACS Pandemic Planning Toolkit,

• “Susceptibility to the pandemic influenza virus will be universal.
• Illness rates will be highest among school aged children (about 40%) and decline with age
• Among working adults, an average of 20% will become ill during a community outbreak
• Per HHS planning guidance, Florida is planning for a severe influenza pandemic similar to 1918, as compared to a moderate pandemic similar to 1957, 1968. Either one could happe.
• Persons who become ill may shed the virus and can transmit infection for up to one day before the onset of illness. Viral shedding and the risk of transmission will be greatest during the first 2 days of illness
• Multiple waves (periods during which community outbreaks occur across the country) of illness could occur with each wave lasting two to three months
• A future influenza pandemic in humans is considered a certainty by the scientific community. When it will happen is entirely uncertain
• In a severe pandemic, absenteeism attributable, to illness, the need to care for ill family members, and fear of infection may reach 40% during the peak weeks of a community outbreak, with lower rates of absenteeism during the weeks before and after the peak.
• Governmental and business planning should include contingencies for worker absenteeism of 20% to 50% during the several-week height of a pandemic wave“

Page 9 of the Planning Toolkit contains a plan for the impact of a pandemic on businesses and government. This includes

• “Train and prepare ancillary workforce (e.g., contractors, employees in other job titles/descriptions, retirees)” (and let’s not forget those dedicated OPS workers!)
• “Establish policies for flexible worksite (e.g., telecommuting) and flexible work hours (e.g., staggered shifts)”

Looks like there could be lots of rapid promotions in the future, like on Omaha Beach on D-Day.